Elon Musks SpaceX to slash 10 percent of staff

In a large shakeup at Elon Musk's space company, SpaceX announced on Friday that it will reduce 10 percent of its employees.

Behind the move is a planned conversion of the labor force to meet its long-term business goals. However, this will mean a significant hit for its current work pool, which amounts to approximately 6,000 people.

In a statement, a SpaceX spokesman HuffPost told the staff reduction that was necessary for the company to be able to cope with future successes.

To continue delivering to our customers and succeeding in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space-based Internet, SpaceX must become a smoother company. Either of these developments, even when attempted separately, have violated other organizations. That means we have to share paths with some talented and hard-working members of our team.

We are grateful for everything they have accomplished and their commitment to SpaceX's mission. This action is only due to the extremely difficult challenges that precede and would otherwise not be necessary.

One of SpaceX's major goals, as evidenced by its statement, has been to send tourists to space, possibly even landing people on Mars with a project called Starship. In September, it was revealed that Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa would be among the first passengers on the company's journey to the moon, which is expected to start in 2023.

SpaceX has also begun a mission to radiate Internet services to the world around the world through a network of satellites called Starlink, whose first set will be distributed this year.

Despite the staff cutbacks, the company has expressed confidence in its financial position and its investors and plans to launch two missions of its Falcon Heavy Rockets together with the start jump of Starship before the end of the year.

On Friday morning, SpaceX marked its first mission in 201

9 with the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California.